48 AN HISTORICAL DISQUISITION

SECT. of which seems to have been the supplying theirII. subjects with Indian commodities. When Syriasubmitted to the irresistible arms of Rome, Pal-myra continued upwards of two centuries a freestate, and its friendship was courted with emula-tion and solicitude by the Romans, and their rivalsfor empire, the Parthians. That it traded withboth, particularly that from it the capital, as wellas other parts of the empire received the produc-tions of India, we learn from Appian, an authorof good credit *. But in tracing the progress ofthe commerce of the ancients with the East, Ishould not have ventured, upon his single testi-mony, to mention this among the channels ofnote in which it was carried on, if a singulardiscovery, for which we are indebted to the liberalcuriosity and enterprising spirit of our own country-men, did not confirm and illustrate what he relates.Towards the close of the last century, some gen-tlemen of the English factory at Aleppo incitedby what they heard in the East concerning thewonderful ruins of Palmyra, ventured, notwith-standing the fatigue and danger of a journey throughthe defartj to visit them. To their astonishmentthey beheld a fertile spot of some miles in extent,arising like an istand out of a vast plain of sand,covered.with the remains of temples, porticoes,aqueducts , and other public works , which' inmagnificence and splendor, and some of them inelegance , were not unworthy of Athens or of

* Appian. de Bello Civil. lib. v. p. 1076. edit. Tollii.

Rome